updated 8:27 p.m. ET Aug. 16, 2006

SPARTA, Ky. - Sarah Fisher jokes that her 2007 plans will revolve around whichever owner can get her in a car first.

Consider Indy Racing League’s Dreyer & Reinbold Racing in the lead.

After Fisher finished 12th at the Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway last weekend, the IndyCar team will give Fisher another shot in the season-ending Peak Antifreeze 300 in Chicago next month.

“Sarah did a great job getting back in the car,” said team owner Dennis Reinbold, who added he’d like to get Fisher in a car she can “make some noise with” for the Chicago race.

There wasn’t much noise for Fisher to make in Kentucky, her first IRL start since the 2004 Indy 500.

Despite qualifying 12th — right next to Danica Patrick — Fisher languished in the bottom half of the field for most of the day as her crew scrambled to find the right setup. Only a solid run over the race’s final 25 laps allowed her to finish where she started.

“We were conservative on our car,” Fisher said. “I just wanted to finish and get that rhythm going again.”

It’s a rhythm Fisher said she missed during 2005, when she raced in NASCAR’s Grand National West Series. Getting back into the cockpit of an IndyCar brought back memories and more than a little bit of nerves.

“In a sense, I’m a rookie,” she said. “They didn’t make me take my rookie test again. I would have liked that. That would have been more laps.”

Still, Fisher said her year in the stock cars helped her become a better IndyCar driver.

“In those cars, you have to have an enormous amount of car control,” Fisher said. “To come here, I feel so comfortable and it’s like I just know what (the car) is doing. My feedback is better. Everything’s better.”

Which is why, as much as Fisher enjoyed returning to the place where she set a track record that still stands while winning the pole in 2002, she was equally frustrated by not being able to run faster.

“I’m never happy until we get to run up front,” she said.

Though Fisher acknowledged after qualifying that a top-five finish was probably out of the question, she thought cracking the top 10 would be a win. Instead, she had to settle for what could be her first tentative step toward returning to the IRL full time.

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Flying on the hardwood, racing on the rink, getting physical on the gridiron, and much more. more photos

“We were catching them real big in the corners,” she said. “It was off the corners and down the stretch that we had problems with. On restarts, I was picking them off two, three, four at a time. But on the long run, they just gradually picked me back off.”

Those kinds of problems can be worked out over time. The question is whether Sunday’s appearance was a cameo or a dress rehearsal for next season.

Despite her close ties to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing — she raced for the team during the 2002 and 2003 seasons — Fisher is aware that racing is a business. She said she’s been in talks with Richard Childress Racing about a return to stock car racing next year.

“Right now, there’s nothing on the plate,” she said. “I’d love to run some stock cars. I’d love to run Indy cars. Shoot, I might even run both. Who knows?”

A month ago, Fisher was a driver looking for a job. Now, she might have options. It’s a good place to be in, one that she understands better now than she did while driving on the IRL circuit in 1999-2004.

“What we did today, I think that showed we’re still here, I’m still here,” she said. “We’ll have it figured out for Chicago.”

MORE FROM NASCAR / MOTORS

NASCAR / Motors Section Front

Busch, Tryson continue to race hard Latest NASCAR videos Live odds Matchups/injuries NASCAR RESULTS, SCHEDULE, STANDINGS Slide show: Images of NASCAR wives, girlfriends   Slideshow: Danica becomes sports superstar IRL results, schedule Championship Off Road Racing MORE ON MOTOR SPORTS NASCAR / Motors Section Front   Add NASCAR / Motors headlines to your news reader: